Blum reports year-end results for fiscal year 2021-2022

Demand continues for product, providing a successful ending to the financial year.

 

Blum, Inc., the American arm of the leading functional hardware manufacturer for hinges, drawer slides and lift systems, provided a business update today to report its financial results for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2022.

The company posted more than $367.7 million dollars for the fiscal year, a 9% increase in revenue on the previous year. "This increase was driven by high demand for our products but also higher prices due to extreme raw material increases impacting nearly every category,” said Shannon Lafferty, General Manager of Blum USA.

Impact of market demand

Blum continued to experience higher-than-average demand for many of its products last year. This, alongside raw material shortages, difficulty in finding employees, and machine capacity constraints made it difficult to fully meet market demand.

“We are focused on increasing capacities through efficiency gains and through investing in additional machines,” Lafferty said. “We have several major improvements planned, the first being the commissioning of the machines used to assemble our newest product offering – COMPACT CLIP. COMPACT CLIP was launched earlier this year. Initial inventory was produced in Austria and is available for shipments. The equipment will be commissioned in North Carolina later this year,” Lafferty continued.

Investments

To help balance production to improve availability today and in the future, Blum, Inc. invested $16.5 million dollars back into its facility with additional machinery and automation equipment.

Later this year, the company plans to install four COMPACT CLIP machines to provide additional capacity for face frame hinges. Other planned investments include building expansions to house additional machines as well as adding employees to our already understaffed needs.

At year-end, Blum Inc. had 435 employees. The family-owned business added 644 employees to its headcount worldwide, taking staff numbers to 9,422. The Blum Group continues to place importance on its Apprenticeship program, and eight new trainees will join Blum Inc.’s team in September.

Blum group results

“The last business year has again proved to be a challenge due to the ongoing COVID pandemic and war in Ukraine,” said Philipp Blum, Managing Director of Blum. The price of raw materials has increased multi-fold, as has that of transportation.

Against the backdrop of extraordinary global circumstances, there was an 11.2% increase in revenue, taking sales to $2.6 billion dollars worldwide during the 2021-2022 fiscal year. Blum achieved 44% of its revenue in the EU area and 13% in the USA, the company’s single largest market.

With 33 subsidiaries and representative offices worldwide, the Blum Group delivers its products to more than 120 countries.

Looking ahead

Blum has been monitoring consumer spending habits as well as the rate of inflation. “People are having to think twice about how they spend their money,” said Philipp Blum. While remodels and new builds are starting to slow, there is still a backlog of projects waiting for materials to be completed.

As we move into this next fiscal year, we expect healthier inventory levels with the plans to create more capacity to be better positioned to remain a reliable partner – to both our customers and our employees.